TOYOTA GAZOO RACING WORLD RALLY TEAM LAUNCH 2018 CAMPAIGN AT AUTOSPORT INTERNATIONAL

The Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team have launched their 2018 World Rally Championship campaign at the Autosport International show in Birmingham taking the wraps off the latest version of the Toyota Yaris WRC.

It will be a second season for Toyota in its mission to harness experience from motorsport to make ever-better cars. It enjoyed a successful debut year in 2017, including victories on Rally Sweden and Rally Finland, fourth place for Jari-Matti Latvala in the drivers’ championship and third place in the manufacturers’ championship.

A full gallery of driver and car photographs can be downloaded from here.

Autosport International hosted the official WRC season launch and Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT took the opportunity to present the latest version of the Yaris WRC, which benefits from a number of developments based on lessons learned during the past year.

Tommi Mäkinen, Team Principal, said: “We saw last year that the Toyota Yaris WRC was already capable of winning rallies, which was a great achievement by the team, but the competition also allowed us to discover areas where we can improve.”

An upgraded aerodynamics package has been designed to increase downforce at the front of the car, including a new front bumper and wings. There are also updates to the cooling system that will be of benefit in some of the championship’s hot weather events.

The new features were tested late last year in preparation for the opening round of the 2017 season, Rallye Monte-Carlo on January 25 to 28. The driver line-up for 2018 sees the established driver/co-driver partnerships of Jari-Matti Latvala and Miika Anttilla and Esapekka Lappi and Janne Ferm joined by Ott Tänak and Martin Jarveoja.